Page 2 of The Chef

“My cousin invited me to come work in his kitchen,” Char explained. “The letter is in my pack.” He pointed over at the bags next to the donkey, which hadn’t been searched yet. He didn’t elaborate on why his cousin wanted him, although if the captain had been listening to what Char had already told him, he might have an inkling.

“Are all of those bags yours?” the captain asked.

Char shook his head. “Only the green one. The rest are dishes and rations, with the donkey to carry it all. I think the mercenaries had a long journey to go after Marketon, but I didn’t ask.”

A woman in hardened leather armor and chainmail pulled his bag out of the pile and yanked open the strings at the top. She pulled out his spare clothes first, shaking out each item and checking the pockets before setting it aside. Next she pulled out a rolled leather bundle. She undid the ties and unfurled it, revealing his knives, gleaming even in their sheaths, tucked into the pockets sewn into the case. She gripped one hilt and pulled it free.

“Look at this!” she exclaimed, thrusting the thin, curved blade forward and turning her wrist in a practiced movement.

“I promise that knife is much better for gutting fish than humans,” Char called.

“It’s really good steel,” she added, looking at her captain as she spoke while tucking the knife away again.

“Why are the knives in your pack, rather than in use?” he asked Char, suspicion back in his voice.

“Those knives are for use in a proper kitchen with a proper cutting board and excellent conditions to clean them,” Char replied, affronted that he was being accused of not doing his job properly. “A chef’s job is dependent on the quality of his knives, and my knives are kept in perfect condition. A rough camp is no place for them.”

She kept digging in his pack as Char continued to glare. The captain’s lips quirked sideways again in a stifled smile of some kind.

“Ah-hah!” she exclaimed, pulling out his folio. She quickly brought it over for the captain to look through.

All of Char’s personal documents were in there; everything he needed to be able to establish himself in a new city. His identification papers, his chef’s license, personalcorrespondence—including the letter from his cousin—all filled the folio for the captain to read through.

“Charmaine Obenson,” he stated aloud. “First rank, third circle, chef’s college, Timmonsville University.” He gave Char a flat look. “What the heck is a first rank chef doing cooking over a fire in the middle of the woods?”

Char sighed. He took a few seconds to scrape the sides of his bowl clean with his spoon, then chewed and swallowed the last of his oatmeal before responding, “As I told you. My cousin offered me a job in his kitchen in Etoval. The only way to travel over land from Svental to Etoval is through this pass, which the bandits know very well. As did the mercenaries, who didn’t want to sacrifice a fighter to the kitchen for the week and a half trip through the pass. Our paths aligned. Besides, I’m still third circle. I have a long way to go before I’m qualified to run my own kitchen.”

The soldier finished searching Char’s pack without finding anything else interesting and moved on to the bags of food and supplies. She exclaimed a couple of times over the dried and smoked goods, far more than Char needed for this trip. The mercenaries had agreed to see Char through the pass and onto Marketon, but Char didn’t think they had any interest in stopping to resupply there. Wherever their final destination, they had been in a hurry to get there.

Empty bowls were starting to stack up next to the fire. Char eyed them and the pot, which someone had helpfully moved off the fire to the ground. Everything needed to be cleaned, and the small stream that paralleled the path through the mountain wasn’t too far away.

“Found some coded letters here, sir!” another solider called from where he was searching around the bedrolls.

The captain added his empty bowl and spoon to the pile and walked off, leaving Char alone. He was still under watch, since he was surrounded by the entire group, but with the captain gone a line of tension between his shoulder blades faded. They probably weren’t going to kill him at this point, but Char didn’t know what that meant for him long term. Rather than dwelling on it, he went over to the pot, which had been scraped clean of every morsel, and started putting the bowls and spoons inside so he could transport everything to the stream in one trip.

Char wandered through the camp, retrieving emptied bowls where they had been abandoned, and added them to the pot when he returned to the dying fire. He hefted the pot and started walking out of the clearing, but when he reached the donkey to retrieve soap and a scrubbing and drying cloth, the woman who had searched his bag stepped to his side.

“Where are you headed?” she asked.

“The stream,” Char explained. “Only place to wash the dishes here.”

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

Char retrieved all the washing supplies and then led the way through the woods in the direction of the soft burbling of the stream. The water was maybe a foot deep—two feet at the deepest part—and gentle. The raging, wild river he had encountered in the heights of the mountain pass had faded now that it had reached the lower slopes. Still, it was frigid. Char’s hands and knuckles immediately started aching as he dunked the dishes to wet them down and got up a lather on his cleaning cloth.

Oatmeal was easy to make and—with the right additions—delicious. It was a bitch to clean afterward. Cold, dried oatmeal turned to glue, especially if it was given time to harden. Heslopped a few inches of water into the bottom of the pot and left it to soak while he scrubbed and rinsed the bowls and spoons. Then he tackled the pot, which took multiple rounds of scrubbing and rinsing before rubbing his fingertips across the bottom produced a faint squeak to indicate it was clean. He shook out the pot to get rid of as much water as possible before drying everything thoroughly. Mold wasn’t going to infiltrate into his dishes. Not on his watch.

They returned to camp and Char’s guard went to speak with the captain. Char busied himself with repacking everything she had searched. All the food and dishes, his own bag, and everything from breakfast was tucked away again in no time. He hung the wet cloths on a convenient tree limb to dry.

When he looked up again, the captain was standing over him.

“Sir?” Char asked.

“Charmaine, I believe you when you say you don’t have any loyalty to these mercs,” he said. “What about to Svental or to the country of Namin?”

That was luckily a simple answer, although Char suspected the question itself was the opposite. “None. I was sent to a restaurant in Svental in the random lottery as part of the postgraduation placement program after Timmonsville. What’s left of my family all live in Etoval or somewhere nearby within Toval.”

The country of Toval—capital city Etoval—and the country of Namin—capital city Svental—were uneasy neighbors. Separated by the Spikehorn Range, the mountain range Char was currently traveling through, both countries coveted the lush farmland in the foothills on the other country’s side of the border. Char had never studied politics or military policy or really understood all the machinations that went into keeping the peace. However,he had heard the difficulties inherent in moving large numbers of forces over the mountain helped. Certainly, even the small mercenary company hadn’t had an easy time of it—especially since they were all dead.

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